


Mended Prospects

by Pumpkingirl



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Crossdressing, F/F, F/M, M/M, Regency Era, Romantic Poets - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9616955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pumpkingirl/pseuds/Pumpkingirl
Summary: Ellie is a 23 year old uni student, who hasn't got the faintest idea what to do with her life. Will a journey back to 19th century London change that?Amid the myriad of crushing sensations in a lucid moment she realised she wasn’t dreaming. She had never had a dream so physical, so harsh. But wherever she was, whatever game reality was playing with her, she was about to be torn apart.





	1. Chapter 1

There are dreamless nights in our lives and then there are the ones when a dream keeps us awake. When the painter woke from his sweet slumber he already knew a suddenly acquired nocturnal task would not let him rest until his legs could hold him up. He flexed his fingers around a fistful of the crumpled white sheet he was lying on. His hand already had the urge to act, but the tingling in his fingers was more of a demanding pain than a pleasant sign of excitement.

His friend Haydon once told him there were subjects that had a mind of their own; paintings that wanted to exist and so they all but took over the body and soul of the master till they gained a life on the canvas. Haydon also said these were the most trying pieces to create and they almost always changed the painter’s life. He didn’t care to elaborate on the nature of the change.

Joseph always feared he would feel violated if such a mission found him, but now as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up to follow the calling, he only felt a strange calm determination. He was breached, yes, by a vision, an idea, but he knew he was still in control. He wished it to stay that way.

He had to totter blindly to his desk before he could light a candle and it proved to a be a difficult exercise, because he also had to keep concentrating on the image his mind conjured up while he was asleep. Although somehow he was sure he won’t, he still didn’t want to risk losing the girl’s face he saw nor the memory of the delicate curve of her arms. Her thoughtful gaze seemed to be still visible for him through the dark, even though he knew he wasn’t dreaming any more.

Light filled the room with the flicker of the candle and Joseph started his way out and up to the attick where he usually worked. He quickly stood up an empty canvas, equipped himself with paint and started drawing the lines.

A girl leaning on her arm resting on a windowsill staring pensively on green leaves; a little segment of nature….

It didn’t seem to be a dream, he felt as if he’d been there, as if he’d seen the girl in flesh and blood; her short black hair, her soft touch on the surface of a leaf, her brooding, questioning stare.

’Who am I?’ her clear blue eyes seemed to ask.

***

Letting out a sigh of relief Ellie threw her backpack on the bed. She had a long series of classes behind her and she couldn’t wait to give herself up to sleep.

’Ellery Paige’, she reflected out loud ’all you’d need right now is a nice long swim in Lethe’.

She smiled on her silly notion, and since said river was clearly out of reach, she shot longing glances at her bed.

But before she could consider sleeping, she reminded herself she had to find a place for her new roommate.

She looked down at the bonsai tree she was still holding in her hand. Lily gave it to her, kind, lovely Lily, who has been her friend since the dawn of time, who has put up with her no matter what. It was a birthday gift – Ellie turned twenty-three today.

The windowsill seemed to be the perfect spot for the plant that she quickly christened Henry. He could bathe in the sun during the mornings while Ellie would be away. Right now bright stars spotted the indigo blue evening sky; she had a breathtaking view from the top floor window on the open secrets of the night.

She pulled her three-legged stool to the window and nestled her head in the crook of her elbow on the sill. She reached out to stroke the small leaves of the bonsai and let herself be swallowed up by the dark gaping chasm of her own helplessness.

Twenty-three she was, but she couldn’t even decide if she wanted to sign up for a presentation topic the next day in her literature class at uni, let alone what she should do with her fututre.

Ellie craved adventure, but she felt too coward to ever start out on one, that’s why she refused her aunt’s invitation to Paris – she feared she would become paralyzed in a new environment. She wasn’t quite ready to leave her comfort zone, not just yet. She felt she needed time to plan her future minutely, to minimize the possibility of failure.

The only problem was, there was nothing to plan, really. She had not a single notion of what she would be capable of, of what she would be good at. On nights like this she tended to let her mind wonder about her potential, but she only ever seemed to find walls; stone-hard and impenetrable walls. She didn’t have the power to tear them down.

’You can become anything you want, dumbo’ Lily chided her every time she would come up with the topic.

’Your fate will become obvious once you quit this active soul-searching – or should I call it self-hating? – you’ve engaged in recently’ she added yesterday when they were eating their lunch in the Seven Swans – a pub they frequented during weekdays. The building has seen better days and the owner didn’t bother to change the flaking ugly-green tapestry but somehow that was exactly what gave the place its charm.

’You haven’t seen my photos in days, you’ve been so immersed in your own world’ Lily went on with her mouth full of burger.

’Alright, alright, I will’ Ellie promised. ’Have you started the zoo project yet?...’

And she hurried the conversation on just like that. It was easy for Lily. She had already found her calling in photography. If Ellie was with Lily, they were always accompanied by the sound of clicking as well.

Ellie sometimes wished she could ’click’ the image of her current world away just like that with a light stroke of her index finger. She wanted change. The sooner the better…

As these thoughts were running through her mind, she moved her head just an inch. She hadn’t switched the lights on when she’d come in – the moon provided enough light to move around without accidents – so it wasn’t a surprise for her that the corner of the room she was now staring at was dark.

What unsettled her was that the darkness seemed to shift and change; for a moment part of it appeared to be more dense than the rest of the negative space around. Ellie lifted her head but by the time she could have made sure she really saw a dark shape of a human figure standing only a metre and a half away from her, the shadows changed again and the vision was gone.

***

It all started as if someone had flooded her dreams with paint. The colours danced in blurry spots in front of her eyes, then flew like rivers acquiring depth and length until they wholly filled the frame of her vision. Shapes merged into each other but nothing truly found its definitive form; the view was hectic and ever-changing.

Soon the sounds started. The shrills of city-life hurt her ears like never before. The chatter, the shouts, the clink of hooves hitting cobbles – it all vibrated in her head like a high-pitched note ringing out on a triangle. It wasn’t long before the smells hit her nose too; the odours of rotten fruit and generously applied cologne, of stale water and baking bread rushed her so that she was now battling with nausea.

She tried to turn away from the frantic view, but she couldn’t escape the moving shapes that now seemed to become sharper by the minute. She closed her eyes but it only enhanced the intensity of the sounds and smells and the cacophony eventually built up into a crescendo… The chaos of her senses was so intense, that she thought something inside her brain would snap any minute.

Amid the myriad of crushing sensations in a lucid moment she realised she wasn’t dreaming. She had never had a dream so physical, so harsh. But wherever she was, whatever game reality was playing with her, she was about to be torn apart.

She started to scream and she didn’t stop, until it struck her that she was hearing only her own voice. She opened her eyes to a world that was standing still again: the sounds dulled to a normal pitch, the smells all but evaporated. She was standing on all fours, in what appeared to be a narrow close, the ground of which was sparsely littered with hay.

She almost jumped out of her skin when a small child ran past her, chuckling like he had just heard the best joke of his life. Ellie followed his path with her eyes and eventually rested her gaze on a scene that was familiar, yet so far distant to her. The child reached the mouth of the alley and stepped onto the wide road beyond where coaches passed by in regular fashion and a mass of men and women dressed in period clothing wandered around like it was the most normal thing to do. Ellie staggered to her feet with some effort and on shaky legs walked to the end of the alley herself. The whole street looked like the set of a film, but she couldn’t see the cameras and instead of the shouted instructions of a director, she heard the shreak of a newspaper boy who was standing only a few feet away from her:

’Ladies and Gentlemen! The _Seditious Meetings Act_ has passed! Large gatherings are now considered illegal’ he shouted.

’Why choose England over the New World? – Read the records of a revenant!’ he bellowed.

And then:

’The Prince Regent is said to be recovering from his recent malady. The Royal carriage was spotted yesterday on Regent Street.’

Ellie looked down at the stripy pyjamas she was wearing and then back at the bizarre street view before her. People passed by her, but no one seemed to spare her a glance, like she wasn't there. For her though it all seemed real enough.

 ’Prince Regent, huh?’ she uttered before she sprinted back to the alley to be sick.


	2. Chapter 2

**_7 months later…_ **

 

’What’s the point of pissing him off? Just say „ _Yes, Mr. D.Worth, of course, Mr. D.Worth”_ and then do whatever the hell you want.’

’You know it doesn’t work that way, Lily.’

Their conversation was shadowed over by the crunching of leaves beneath their feet as they were crossing the campus. Lily was heading for the canteen, while Ellie had an unpleasant meeting to look forward to.

‘I sure know it doesn’t’ retorted Lily. ‘Because you can’t hold yourself back when you are in the same room with him.’

Ellie snapped like she always did when their conversation included Mr. Dankworth. ‘He tries to tell me what to do. He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t! He’s a twit, Lil.’

Lily gently slipped one arm around Ellie’s shoulder. ‘Hey. He’s a bit of a meddler, yes. But he wants to help you, I think.’

Ellie stopped and turned to look at her friend. ‘Lil, you know as well as I do that all he wants is to take over Dad’s place in my life. And it’s not like all the _father figure_ act is for me, either. It’s to flatter mum. He’s been alone for too long and now he’s finally found a family over which he can exercise his patriarchal power. It satisfies him.’ Ellie’s features burned with disgust.

‘Jesus, Ellie, you’re taking it a bit too seriously’ Lily laughed and ruffled up her friend’s hair playfully. ‘Maybe he has the hots for your mum, but don’t forget how much he loved and respected your Dad. I know you’d like to see yourself as some modern Hamlet in this situation, but he is far from being King Claudius.’

‘He thinks he is clever because he waited,’ Ellie mused. ‘But he held himself back only because he knew, I would have skipped all the philosophy and slain him down right away if he had tried anything after Dad’s funeral.’

Lily’s bittersweet smile was infectious and before Ellie could have objected, she was wrapped in a tight hug.

‘Listen… just try to be civil with him for once. You don’t need the tension either. You have enough on your plate already.’

‘You are right,’ Ellie murmured into her shoulder.

‘You will be nice to him?’ her friend sounded surprised.

Ellie took a deep breath and let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I’ll do my best not to stab him in the first act.’ 

***

The Faculty of Mathematics and Physical Sciences was already kind of deserted at this time of the day. Ellie remembered a time when this building was a lot more familiar to her but nothing really connected her to it any more. Other than memories.

Her Dad drowned two years ago during a holiday he went on with his friends and since then her visits to this building almost entirely stopped. Like their lunch time banter stopped. Like their reading together stopped. Just like her childhood – stopped.

He was the most important person in Ellie’s life, he was the one who made her fall in love with literature in the first place. Ellie had never met another mathematician who had such a passion for poetry and she had a hunch she never would.

Her Dad was over the moon when she said she wanted to study the written word at university too and he never for a moment seemed to be disappointed that Ellie didn’t inherit his talent for numbers. He always said she would make a wonderful scholar and he never stopped widening Ellie’s horizon by slipping works of yet-unknown authors and poets in her hand.

Mr. Dankworth knew nothing of literature. Compared to her Dad, he was a dry, button-down man whose behaviour most of the time was positively dictatorial, or so it seemed to Ellie. She didn’t understand what her Dad had seen in him but the fact was, they had been the best of friends since Ellie was a baby.

Since he knew them for such a long time, Mr. D.Worth understood well what her Dad wanted for Ellie and ever since he was gone, the man took it on him to push the girl towards that goal. He probably didn’t anticipate to meet such resistance.

The problem was that Ellie had lost motivation for some time. She wasn’t sure she was meant to work at a university, or if she wanted to. And it was oh so easy and satisfying to rile Mr D.Worth; she just couldn’t help defying him whenever she could. He was there on the island with Dad after all… He was there and didn’t do jack shit to save him. It still hurt.

When she knocked on his door, she didn’t wait for an answer but stepped in instantly. When the man saw her he stood up behind his desk. He was nearing fifty, he had unruly hair and a pair of glasses so thick that his eyes looked unnaturally small behind the lenses.

‘Ah, Ellie. You got my message.’ He pointed towards the chair on the other side of the table but Ellie refused his invitation.

‘I’d rather stand, thank you. I don’t suppose it’ll take more than a couple of minutes.’ She went to the bookshelf and started reading the book titles as if they were the most interesting things in the world. She didn’t want to look at the man, because he started to arrange the pens and papers on his table and she hated this habit of his. It was like a mania; a disorder he couldn’t get rid of. Everything had to be neat around him. 

‘Mr. Turner told me you don’t want to hand in an essay for the competition.’ He cut to the chase immediately.

Right. Mr. Turner had turned a snitch. She was bitterly disappointed and wished she could scratch his name out of her mental list of favourite professors just like that but she wasn’t capable of such a thing. She adored Mr. Turner. He was their 19th century literature professor, an extremely entertaining and endlessly helpful person – a real gift in Ellie’s life.

However, recently he had this not-too-wonderful idea to give the best ones in class an hour to shine, an opportunity to try themselves out as a lecturer. He was about to set up a competition with two rounds to determine whose public speaking skills were the best and the entry to the friendly rivalry was an essay on their chosen topic.

Ellie shrugged and when he heard the man was finally done with the fidgeting, she turned to him.

‘I won’t because I can’t choose a suitable topic and I don’t feel like giving a grand speech if it comes to that,’ she explained trying to keep her calm.

 ‘This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Ellie,’ argued Mr. Dankworth. ‘If you win, I’m sure the heads of the faculty will see a potential in you. This is your last year here, a last chance to get noticed…’

‘And what if I don’t want to get noticed?’ Ellie exploded. ‘What if I just want to be left alone, to finish my studies in peace?’

Mr. Dankworth stepped out from behind his desk and crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘And then what?’ he inquired.

Ellie rolled her eyes. They had had this conversation a million times already.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ she stated and started walking towards the door of the office. Inside her head she cursed him and herself too for not being able to tolerate him once, at least for Lily’s sake, but she couldn’t go through their endless quarrel again.

Before she could have escaped though, Mr. Dankworth’s soft question reached her ears:

‘What do you think he would tell you now?’

She turned immediately, suddenly irritated, and marched back to him.

‘Do you think if you bring him up I will listen to you, Mr. Dankworth? Do you think you can disarm me that easily?’

She could only hope he didn’t notice her cheeks were burning from helplessness rather than anger this time. Her face was inches from his and she wished she could wipe that smug smile off his face.

‘Roger,’ he said. ‘I told you to call me Roger.’ He looked her straight in the eye.

A minute passed like this, with them staring at each other saying nothing. Ellie got tired of it first.

‘Damn you,’ she hissed and turned to leave.

The corridor echoed of his farewell words:

‘The Romantics were his favourites, you know.’

***

That evening Ellie was still thinking about her little _scene_ with Mr. Dankworth while she was getting dressed for the night.

As she was pulling up her trousers she scolded herself once more for not getting through the situation smooth enough – Lily sounded very disappointed on the phone when she told her what had happened. She was Ellie’s only real friend and Ellie was always eager to show her that her opinion mattered. She felt she let Lily down with her behaviour.

Then, while she was buttoning her waistcoat she recalled how Mr. Dankworth smirked at her when he thought he had the upper hand. She almost ripped off a button in the process.

The echo of the man’s nagging question – _And then what? –_ returned to her when she was reaching for her boots. She had confessed to herself a long time ago that she didn’t know the answer and that scared her. What would she do indeed, after everything was said and done?

But she reached the pinnacle of despair when at last she went about fixing her cravat in front of the mirror. She made the mistake of letting herself consider her self-appointed guardian’s other puzzling question: what would her Dad say right now?

She looked in the mirror and saw herself in a full gentleman’s attire. For a moment she concentrated on her face which was a mystery even to herself; its two-sidedness, the possibility of double identity it held. It seemed to reflect the battle she was currently fighting within herself.

Of course she knew what her Dad would have suggested, if he ‘d been there with her. He’d have said she had to go for it. But going for it meant a fair chance for advancement… to who knew where. She had an advantage none of his peers could have even dreamed of after all. She could win and then what?

‘ _What then_ , Mr. Dankworth?’ she whispered to herself.

She couldn’t really see herself as a university professor, but her Dad could and he rarely was wrong about anything. She told herself she would think about possible topics at least. That couldn’t hurt.

She stared at the mirror for a second more and suddenly imagined herself standing in front of a lecture room full of students like that: clad in breeches and tailcoat, looking like a gent from a period drama. She let out a hearty chuckle that quickly turned into a yawn.

It was time to go to sleep.

 


End file.
